


After 03x06 (The Studio Job)

by PseudoLeigha



Series: (More) 2AM Conversations [36]
Category: Leverage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-25
Updated: 2016-08-25
Packaged: 2018-08-11 00:29:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7867936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PseudoLeigha/pseuds/PseudoLeigha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eliot and Parker discuss their work history, Archie. Parker practices /communication/. </p>
<p>Alternating POV</p>
<p>This one's been written for a long time, so there may be minor inconsistencies with the last couple of chapters. If anyone notices one, please point it out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	After 03x06 (The Studio Job)

At some point relatively soon after the team reconvened in Boston (over a year ago, now), Hardison had taken it into his head that Parker, who had missed out on ninety-nine percent of what Hardison (and everyone else) considered a normal childhood experience, needed to be educated. This had led (much to Eliot’s dismay) to the introduction of the thief to cartoons, 90s pop music, and more 80s b-list movies than any of them cared to count. Eliot also blamed Hardison for giving Parker the idea to play Truth or Dare one night after they returned from a job, when she was too hyper to sleep. Both Nate and Sophie had begged off (Nate with the warning that they’d better not destroy the office (which he was still under the delusion was his apartment) with their dares), but neither of the younger men had been able to refuse the blonde’s puppy-dog eyes.

Thankfully for Eliot’s sanity, ‘Truth or Dare’ had devolved into ‘Secrets or Shots’ after it became very clear that neither he nor Hardison could think of a dare Parker would refuse, and they were likely to kill themselves trying to perform any dare she came up with. That was hours ago. Now Hardison was passed out on the sofa, Parker was still as awake and apparently sober as ever (he suspected she had been using some sort of slight of hand to vanish her vodka into the orange soda Hardison was using as a chaser), and he himself was slightly buzzed and ready to call it a night.

“I think I’m done,” he said, finishing his own drink. “Why did you want to play this game in the first place?”

Parker shrugged. “It sounded like fun, especially when I thought there were going to be dares. And Sophie says that after two years, I should be comfortable letting you guys know more about me. And I got to find out things about you that I couldn’t find out just snooping, so it was a fair trade.” It would have been better if she had found a way to steal their secrets without trading them for hers (well, some of hers. She lied about others, because it wasn’t any of Hardison’s business what name her parents gave her, and Eliot didn’t need to know about the real first time she had sex), but secrets were hard to steal if they weren’t written down and you didn’t know they were there. “Did you tell the truth?” she asked, curious to know whether any of the secrets she gathered meant anything, or if she should just forget about them.

“Of course I – Parker! Did you lie? Damnit! That’s not how you play,” Eliot sputtered.

Parker laughed at him. “It’s more fun that way. Besides, I’m a thief. I don’t play fair.”

Eliot mentally smacked himself over the head for even thinking she would, and then again for thinking her awkwardness was about the questions themselves and not because she was lying. Then he was distracted from berating himself by the recollection that she had been a cat burglar since she was nine or ten years old, a subject he had been meaning to ask her about. _‘I’m a thief’_ reminded him of it.

He rolled his eyes. “Yeah, well done. You stole my secrets.” They hadn’t been anything too personal, anyway. “How’d you get started as a thief, anyway?”

The crazy-girl smile that generally preceded a jump off a very tall building spread across her face before she said happily, “I stole my Bunny when I was six.”

Eliot had to raise an eyebrow at that. “Didn’t you say you started when you were nine or ten?”

Parker actually very much enjoyed talking about her thieving exploits (even the early jobs, before she was Parker), so it didn’t bother her at all when Eliot continued to ask questions. She even answered them honestly, and volunteered a little more than he asked.

“I didn’t start doing second-story work until a few years later,” she clarified. “After I ran away the third time.”

“Was that when you met Archie?”

“Nah, that was when I was with the street kids. Got picked up and sent to another foster family… ran away, got into a gang and worked as a getaway driver for a while, got sent to another family, escaped and boosted cars for a while in Detroit… got busted with a bait car, and after I got out of juvie I went back to mostly robbing rich folks’ houses and picking pockets. When I was thirteen I cut my leg up, you saw the scar, and it got infected and I had to turn myself in ‘cause I thought I was gonna die, but after that I escaped again, and maybe a year and a half after that I met Archie.”

“So you were, what, fifteen?”

That was a boring question, which in Parker’s mind meant it was time for her to ask one instead. “Yeah, something like that. It was ’98, so yeah, I guess. Why? How did you get your start?”

“You know this, Parker,” he said with a sigh. “I joined the Army straight outta high school, got put in Special Ops, did two tours before the Agency recruited me, did three years with them before they burned me, and then went solo.” Oh. That was boring, too. She did already know all that. “An’ as for why, I’m tryin’ to decide how much I should be pissed at Archie for trainin’ ya to be a thief, an’ not takin’ you home like his own kid.” He scowled, and Parker couldn’t help but laugh.

“None,” she grinned.

“None what?” Eliot felt that he had definitely missed some part of whatever conversation was taking place in Parker’s head.

“That’s how angry you should be with Archie. None. I _wanted_ to be a thief. Well, I already was one. He just made me better. And besides, I wouldn’t have fit in with his family any better than I did with the foster families.”

Eliot was rather shocked by the vehemence with which she defended the old man. “Is that what he told you?” he asked as gently as he could.

Her smile vanished. “ _No_ , it’s what I saw for myself. They were happy. His wife and kids didn’t know anything about him being a thief, and they didn’t need me coming in and messing up their life.”

That was, at least, consistent with what Leech had said, but… “That’s not the point, Parker. What about you? You should have been taken care of. At fifteen a girl should be in school, getting’ ready to learn to drive an’ worryin’ about if her crush thinks she’s cute.” That was how his sister’s teenage years had gone, anyway. “Not, what? Set up in a warehouse somewhere learnin’ to be a better thief.”

“I had an apartment,” she scowled, suddenly curled into a defensive ball, all knees and elbows and angry glares. “And I already knew how to drive,” (Eliot snorted. Getaway driver before she was thirteen? Yeah, right.) “And if you weren’t paying attention, I’ve been taking care of myself as long as you have.”

Eliot winced at that – Parker was a good nine or ten years younger than him, so they would have started their careers about the same time, but while he had been an eighteen-year-old enlisting in an organization that told you exactly what to do and how to do it, she had been a nine-year-old serial runaway fending for herself on the streets of he didn’t even know where. He had to admit, that probably counted for a lot more as far as learning to take care of yourself went.

“I didn’t _want_ to go try to be part of another family or go to school,” she continued. “I _wanted_ to be the best thief in the world. And you don’t get to be pissed because he did exactly what I wanted. Meeting Archie was the best thing that ever happened to me.”

The look on her face suggested that Eliot was about to get stabbed with a fork (or anything else relatively sharp that she might have to hand), and being a relatively intelligent man, he wisely decided to back off. “Alright, alright. It’s none of my business.”

“No, it’s not.”

“I just… We’re more than a team, Parker. We take care of each other, now.” Parker slowly started to relax. “An’ it makes me mad to think that Archie wouldn’t do the same for you, even though you’d take on a Steranko to take care of him an’ his family.”

“If it helps,” she said in a small voice, “he was mad about that, too.” She gave Eliot a wobbly smile. “He thinks Nate broke me, making me care about people.”

This, possibly more than anything else, was infuriating to Eliot – that Parker’s mentor actively encouraged her not to care about people, keeping her from relating to people even more effectively than shaping her into the perfect thief did. But he knew better than to say anything now, when she was just starting to relax. It must have taken him longer than he thought to master his rage (the next time he saw Archie Leech, the man was getting a piece of Eliot’s mind, and if he didn’t like what Eliot had to say, he could have a fist or two as well), because Parker interrupted his chain of thought.

“Did you mean it, when you said we’re more than a team?”

“What? Yeah, of course.”

“’Cause Hardison’s said it before, and Sophie, but never you.”

“Yeah, Parker, I meant it.”

“So does this mean we’re… friends?”

Eliot almost snorted. Family, more like, after two years working together in the field (not counting their little sabbaticals) and over a year of practically living together in Nate’s pockets. They had saved each other’s lives at least a couple dozen times. He had _voluntarily_ driven to the Grand Canyon and back with her, and _neither one of them had died at his hands_. “Yeah, Parker. Friends.”

“Good,” she said, with an air of finality. She had thought so. She had even told Sophie so, not too long ago. But it was good to know that Eliot was on the same page. She was practicing _communicating_.

Eliot stood to take their glasses and various half-eaten bags of chips and cereal to the kitchen. When he returned, she was gone, the door clicking shut quietly behind her. He tossed a blanket over Hardison, shaking his head. Still twenty pounds of crazy, but yeah, Lord help him, they were friends.


End file.
